WTG? (What the Gif?)

I am sometimes in awe of computers and all of the amazing things they do. Maybe it’s because I’m (just) old enough to remember the advent of the personal computer. My family got our first computer in the late 1980’s. It was a 1986 Apple Macintosh computer*. At the time, I thought it was my ticket to unlimited fun, right behind Barbies and The Little Mermaid. We got that instead of any of the new video game consoles that were coming out. My dad got it so he could work on his thesis at seminary where he was getting his doctorate degree. When he wasn’t hard at work typing away on it, my siblings and I were able to play games on it. It wasn’t as exciting as the Atari and NES systems some of my friends had, but my parents had a very limited income and we weren’t able to do -or buy- a lot of the same things as my friends. Trips to the movie theater were reserved for rare special occasions as was eating out and buying new clothes. We were otherwise limited to cheap thrift store clothes, or hand-me-downs from church members.

 

photo by Tiziano L. U. Caviglia

If you were ever fortunate enough to own one of these bad boys,  you probably realize how epic the games weren’t. There was a built-in unbeatable chess game, a black and white drawing program and a typing game. We did have a floppy disk game of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. At the time, I had not read the book and so could not actually play the game. Now that I have read them and re-read them and then re-read them again, I think it would be fun to play it, just to see if I could get further than Arthur’s house being demolished.

Early computer and video  games, as primitive as they seem now, were almost magical to my 8-year-old eyes. To be honest, I still don’t understand exactly how they work. I’d rather not think about it and I will stubbornly cling to my own magic computer box theory indefinitely. (Also, rainbows are gateways to fantasy worlds that double as giant slides, and Amanda, my corn-silk hair Cabbage Patch Kid is a sentient being, fully devoted to being my-best-friend-forever, even though she’s currently stuffed in a box in my basement.)

Thinking about how far computers have come in such a short time really is incredible. And we truly are better off because of it. I can complete tasks (like buying a Starbucks drink on my phone) so quickly that I have endless time to devote to the things that truly matter**. I can keep in touch with friends on the other side of the world without buying a $1400 plane ticket. I have near infinite information at my fingertips, only one Google click away. I can search online for reviews of books so I don’t waste time reading a book I might not like. And I can repeatedly watch two seconds of a movie clip on an endless loop anytime I want. Wait, what? Why? The rest of that makes complete sense. Watching a looping video clip, though?

I don’t fully understand the magic of computers, mostly because I haven’t really tried. One thing, though, that I find truly mystifying, is how somewhere along the way, computers have paved the way for a reduction in the ability to share thoughts using words and complete sentences, replacing the English language first with thousands of acronyms and now with millions of GIFs to express how we really feel about things.

To that I say, “What the GIF?!”
click here to see how I feel about GIFs.

*Random fact about Apple Macintosh: the computer we got that was made in 1986 continued working my entire childhood and lasted until after I went to college. I think it would still work but my mom got rid of it, along with our dot matrix computer

**Author’s disclaimer: Using technology to complete tasks quickly and efficiently may not leave you endless time to devote to the things that truly matter. (Unless the things that truly matter include Candy Crush, Cross Fingers, T.V., video games, or Pinterest.)

Embracing My Geek

When I was younger, my favorite thing to do, hands down, was spend quality time with my dad. He was a pastor and his normal Sunday routine consisted of him driving to 3 separate towns to preach at 3 separate churches. Sometimes my whole family went to all of the services. We would pile into whatever junk car we had at the time. My parents would sit up front and turn on some classic rock, most likely to drown out the sound of 4 kids fighting in a back seat that was only meant to hold 3 kids. Sometimes, though, my mom would decide that 1 service was enough. The rest of the family would go to whatever service was closest and skip the rest. These Sundays quickly became my favorite. I loved going to church when it was just the 2 of us. Not only did I get to sit up front, a treat in itself, but I got to spend a couple of hours riding in a car with my favorite person. We would listen to classic rock together and sing our favorite songs, sit in companionable silence, or talk. He would tell me stories about history and I gained a deep appreciation of history because of those Sunday drives with my dad.

My dad is also to blame for my relationship with geek culture. If Sunday drives were #1 on my list of favorite things to do, spending time watching t.v. or playing games with Dad was #2. (Although that might have dropped down a spot for several years when I chose the imaginative world of Barbie and my Cabbage Patch named Amanda). I would curl up next to him on the couch and watch what he was watching. His favorite show was Star Trek. We watched the original series together and all of the Enterprise movies. I don’t know if I liked the show on its own merit or if I liked it because I watched it with my dad. But I loved this time together. As I grew older, I began learning about strange people who also watched these shows. They would dress up as the characters on t.v. and call themselves Trekkies. Part of me must have known that this had to be decidedly uncool. Or maybe whoever told me about them told me in a way that left no doubt that they were just plain stupid. I was an awkward child, easily swayed, and desperately wanted to fit in with my peers. From then on, I stopped watching Star Trek with my dad and turned my full attention to Barbies, Amanda the Cabbage Patch Kid, The Little Mermaid, and The Chronicles of Narnia. (Lesson from my childhood: playing with Barbies and watching The Little Mermaid repeatedly when you’re 11 does not actually help you fit in. It, in fact, has the opposite effect and you would probably be better off watching Star Trek and attending a convention dressed as a Klingon.)

Now that I’m older and imagine I might be a little wiser, I have found myself to be far more satisfied and content when embracing the dark edges of my mind that seek out science fiction, fantasy, and fandoms instead of closeting them. I live a much fuller life by blending my geek with the parts of me that are more acceptable to the closeted or mundane of the world, while encouraging others to not be ashamed any longer and embrace their own geek.